When former Senator Rick Santorum, a faithful Catholic who appears to be preparing to run for president, made some comments recently in a speech in South Carolina, they were taken out of context in an article by Andy Barr at Politico. While Santorum’s remarks about historical revisionism of the Crusades were highlighted, Politico left out clarifying remarks which express Santorum’s views, albeit in a simple analogy, on what Christians should be doing to counter Islamic jihad. It should be noted that these remarks are in keeping with the advice of the Vatican for Christians faced with Islamic aggression.

‘From my perspective, I run a Christian school that has a liberal arts-focused education,’ said Oakbrook Headmaster Adair Hinds. ‘The students we had here … We’re trying to make them think. Having somebody make strong statements and take a stance, whether our students believe it or not or agree with it or not is not my concern. My concern is that our students are listening to what people say, listening to their opinions, and running it through their own mind, and basing their decisions on integrity.’

In other words, Santorum endorses the free exchange of ideas in an environment that is not hostile to dissent. This is an important point that was missed, probably because the leftist media really has no earthly idea what we are dealing with in the Islamic version of fundamentalism, not to mention ignorance of both history and the Vatican’s official position on these matters.

There will be no ‘Crusades’ ordered by the Pope. Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional. It’s important to understand why this is so, in order to put this talk to rest, so that we can understand the reasonable way to ‘fight’ Islamic jihad.

On the Crusades, Santorum’s main point was that they were defensive wars, which is true. Further, the history of mankind has been a very long journey of coming to a fuller understanding of what human rights are. The idea of human rights began with the Creation story in Judaism and has progressed over time. It is the Judeo-Christian ethic upon which all human rights have their foundation through the course of history. History shows mankind evolving in his coming to a fuller knowledge about human rights gradually over time, beginning from the basic due process that God offered Adam and Eve in the Garden.

The fact of the matter is that the world was once a place where few human rights were recognized. It is not reasonable, then, for us to apply our understanding of human rights to the people of the Medieval Age.

What we can do is look at the core teachings of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and see what they are. Forced conversions have never been a part of the teachings of Judaism and Christianity, no matter what any of their members may have done as a result of their fallen nature and ignorance. For this reason, we can be sure that nothing like the popular understanding of the “Crusades” (as “Christian conquest” carried out by the Catholic Church) ever really did happen because the lens the vast majority of us are looking through distorts the picture.